OLPC Chicago Resources

OLPC Chicago Resources

This is the text of an email Karen Smith sent to the OLPC Chicago listserv on 2/14/08. It's a work in progress, please add to this list as you see fit.

Greetings Chicago XO’rs. I hope to see some of you this Saturday at Larry Langellier’s meetup at Morraine Valley Community College (details here: http://en.forum.laptop.org/viewtopic.php?f=1304&t=705#p535654)

After the Feb 5 meetup at Marie Murphy School, it seemed that some of the XO owners in the area were unaware of some of the resources available online for the OLPC project. This message may be repeat for those of you who have found all these resources, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put them out there again. Maybe I’ve found some things you haven’t, and vice-versa. I will put this list on the OLPC_Chicago wiki page http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Chicago. Please add to it. (A wiki is a shared notebook that everyone can edit – just sign up on the wiki.laptop.org site for a username and get to work!)

Helpful Hint before you start joining these discussions/collaboration efforts: Create a single (somewhat unique) username and then use it for the wiki, the laptop.org forums, and OLPCNews.com – that way people will “get to know” you, as it is clear there is much movement between all these sites. Having a consistent user name will help others to connect you with your ideas and what you know or can contribute. That’s a good thing, in case you were doubting it. I am found on all these places as KayTi.

http://mailman.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-chicago - A Chicago OLPC mailing list. Sign up here to be able to send and receive automated emails from the Chicago OLPC community. And archive is located here: http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-chicago/ There are other project-related lists around specific topics such as Library and Health. Suggestion: consider using an alternate email address for listinfo subscriptions and/or an account that you can write rules on. Some lists have high posting volumes and auto-sorting of the messages can be helpful. I have also found an increase in spam on the email account I use to subscribe to some large lists (not specifically the Chicago one, I don’t know the source – just that the spam is new.)

http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/start/ - The Getting Started page for the laptop.org project. This page contains basic info about opening and starting your laptop. Helpful links in the right will zoom you in to specific pages on the project wiki that are relevant for beginners. If you can’t tell Linux from the Lions at Lincoln Park Zoo, start here.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki - Project wiki for the OLPC project. Our Chicago page is on this wiki here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Chicago. Tons of helpful hints, how-tos, specs, instructions, background documents, and more are located here. Also you will find dreamers with ideas for things to build for the OLPC and notes from a wide range of OLPC users, from developers to teachers in developing nations. **I suggest we use the Chicago Wiki Page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Chicago as our primary connection point and resource-sharing location.**

http://en.forum.laptop.org/index.php - Project Forum - a shared discussion space for the OLPC project. There is a Chicago thread in the “Groups” sub-forum on this site. Meetups will be announced there, on the project wiki, and often on the OLPCNews.com site I’ll mention next.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/olpc_chicago/ - A Flickr group I created as a place to share OLPC Chicago pictures. Flickr is an online photo-sharing site. Those of you who already have Flickr accounts can probably manage this better than I. I’m a Flickr newbie. Add your pictures or link to this group or include “OLPC Chicago” as tags for photos you upload to Flickr.

http://olpcnews.com/ - An independent site run by a guy named Wayan Vota, who is an OLPC fan, but also has a healthy dose of cynicism about aspects of the program. An intro to the OLPCNews site is here: http://www.olpcnews.com/about_olpc_news/about_olpc_news_post.html This site includes a great collection of forums with many active developers, educators, and plain old folks. Use the link in the right column to forums or go here: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php There is a ton of useful stuff, often duplicated from the forum.laptop.org site, but sometimes new and different. For instance, some of us on Feb 5 were experiencing a scrolling bug with the chat software. A fix can be found here: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1200.0 You can also be a guest poster on Wayan’s frontpage blog: http://www.olpcnews.com/about_olpc_news/write_for_olpc_news.html I have posted writeups of meetups on this blog before: http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/user_groups/chicago_olpc_community_meetup.html Larry Langellier has also posted a summary of Chicago-Area OLPC groups here: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=1680.0

From here we get into the much murkier territory of personal and technical blogs where plenty of great OLPC content is being shared. I think it would be nifty if someone would start a “guide to OLPC blogs” type of page on the wiki. Anyone up for the challenge?

I hope this is helpful!

Karen Smith

St. Charles, IL

Your friendly neighborhood XO enthusiast & mother of two XOs and their pint-sized owners